Hi everyone!

I would like to know YOUR experiences with freezing items. Anything from batter to icing to cakes to egg yolks to cookies.....anything and everything that you have put in the freezer thinking it would make your life a little easier and being successful with it or unsuccessful.

Thank you!
Sabrina

I know some of you freeze things......doesn't anyone want to share?

Hey saberger! I just made my first WASC a couple of weeks ago and it was delicious! I decided to try another first that day too: I froze the cake. Some helpful ladies here on CC told me to freeze the cake while it was still warm and that would make it extra moist. So I cooled the layers about 10 minutes or so in the pan, and then I put them on racks for another 10 minutes. Then I wrapped them twice in saran wrap and twice in tin foil. I froze them for a week and was worried about them the whole week! LOL! I defrosted them for several hours, wrapped, at room temperature. Then I filled and frosted the cake. SIMPLY DIVINE and moist as can be! I will freeze all my layers from now on. It really locks in the moisture! Hope this helps!

I freeze butter, cream, egg whites, unfilled cakes (only when not needed immediately), buttercream, fruit juices and purees/reductions, and probably more stuff I can't think of right now, haha.

Sometimes I get ingredients and fantastic prices, so I freeze them for another day

Hope this helps.

Oh I forgot - I also roll out the NFSC recipe onto baking paper and freeze it too - after its frozen I wrap it carefully in cling wrap to exclude air and freezer burn. But every time I have taken it out and let it haw on the bench for a littel while it has been excellent to cut cookies from and bake.

I always freeze me cake just for the same reason.....very moist cake. I have heard of people freezing the cakes with fondant but you need to completly defrost it before you put anything else on (the cake sweats)

The freezer is my friend!

I make cookie dough, scoop it into balls and freeze them. Then when someone wants an order of cookies, I just pull 12 or 24 out of the freezer, throw 'em in the oven. So once the dough balls are made, it takes me 15 minutes to do a cookie order.

I experimented once and put a 6" cake pan of cake batter in the freezer. It pretty much went freezer-to-oven, baked up great! (next experiment will be freezing cupcake batter in the wrappers and see how they bake up. That would be cool .... to be able to pull 3 of this and 4 of that for those onesy-twosy orders!)

Freeze baked cakes, of course.

On the non-cake side:

At home, I'll save the celery tops, onion skins, broccoli stems, carrot peelings in a freezer ziplok. When I deskin and debone chicken, I save the skin and bones. Then I combine all of this and make a big 'ole pot of chicken broth (throw in a handful of parsley). You know those "Can't Believe It's Not Butter" yellow cups? I use those and put chicken broth in them and freeze. It's a PERFECT 1 cup of chicken broth for gravies, vegetables, and flavorings.

Have 2 or 3 slices of bread left in the wrapper that your family just won't eat? Throw it in the freezer. By Thankgiving, I have enough bread slices to make enough stuffing to feed a platoon! During the year, it's easy to pull 3 or 4 slices to shred up for breadcrumb toppings for casseroles.

I also make mini muffins for my kids school lunches, and freeze them in pairs in little freezer bags. They defrost beautifully in their lunch boxes by recess.

I am like Indydebi too with the other cooking bits - I save all the heels from loaves of bread then pop them in the food processor for fresh breadcrumbs. And I also do the master stock thing with all sorts of leftover veggie bits!

I love freezing!

Indy - that is a brilliant idea with the cupcake batters! I am definitely keen to try that!!

I freeze about 90% of my undecorated/unfilled cakes, cookies, brownies, bar cookies, bagels, buttercream, cookie batter, and cake batter.

I especially like freezing cake batter. When I have some spare time I through together a couple different batches and put into sandwich size ziplocks, then when I'm ready to make a small batch of cupcakes I just pull a bag out and let it thaw and I'm ready to go! I much prefer this to baking cupcakes and then putting them in the freezer.

Kathy - that is awesome! I must try that too!

If you ever have access to masses of blueberries (or other berries but these work best) you can freeze them like frozen peas too. When you need blueberries for a pie or muffin or pancake batter, just add them frozen - they don't stain the mixture like fresh berries.

And I remembered I also freeze homemade sourdough dinner rolls, sourdough belgian waffles and bagels.

Years back I bought a book called, "Prevention's Freezer Cookbook." It is AWESOME. I don't know if they still sell it, but it is worth its weight in GOLD. It includes quick dishes FOR and FROM the freezer. I got a LOT of great ideas from that book.

One thing I always do that I learned from that book, since I use so much ginger and garlic: I mince a bunch of each in my food processor. I drop it by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper lined cookie sheets (wear gloves or the oils will burn your skin!). Then I freeze them. When they're frozen, I pop each ball off and put them in a baggie. They don't stick much together because they're already individually frozen. Any time a recipe calls for garlic or ginger, I use one of my little frozen balls right from the freezer into the pan. Couldn't be easier!

WOW...I never knew that you could freeze some of the items I've read in this thread . I did freeze my first cake last week....I had never frozen a cake before and everyone who tried it mentioned how moist it was. Who knew....I didn't. I was always under the assumption that freezing or refrigeration would dry it out.

Thanks for starting this thread...I'm learning a lot.

Wow!!! Thank you SO much for sharing! I have put cakes in the freezer after cooling, but usually for only a couple of days (to get a head start on an order). I haven't done the BC, and never did the batter! That is AWESOME!!!! How long can it stay for?

I thought that all veggies had to be blanched prior to going into the freezer. Strawberries should go right into the freezer...no wash or anything? hat would b a great saver since I get them from Costco (esp. cheap right now) and don't always use them right away.

Has anybody ever filled and iced a cake in BC, then put it into the freezer for an extended period of time (more than 3 days)?

I had never frozen any cakes unless they were thoroughly cooled until last week. I used flower nails to help me bake a 1/2 sheet cake that I planned to carve. This was the first time I had used a flower nail in this way - I WAY over estimated how long the cake needed in the oven. It baked so fast it came out a little too dry. So I let it cool for 10 min in the pan, then flipped it out onto saran wrap - 2 layers, then wrapped in foil and put it in the freezer, except for the bottom - the rest of the cake was very moist, and I used a simple syrup to recover the dry portions - I am sold on freezing the cake while warm!!!!!

"Has anybody ever filled and iced a cake in BC, then put it into the freezer for an extended period of time (more than 3 days)?"

I haven't ever done it, but if you think about it, stores that make Ice Cream Cakes do it all the time so it must be okay!

I like Holly Clegg's book trim&TERRIFIC Freezer Friendly Meals. There are sections in it for everything from breakfast to dessert and party foods. Her website has some recipes. There is a little snowflake icon to let you know it works well for freezing. http://www.hollyclegg.com/recipes.cfm

I do the same as indydebi with cookie dough and soup makings and broth. I also save the bones from the cooked rotisserie chicken and the Thanksgiving turkey to make soup/stock. (No, I'm not saving the bone off of people's plates! Someone asked me that once!!) We also save the bone from ham to make split pea soup. When we go to my mother-in-law's house for holidays, we take her turkey and ham bones too.

I buy chopped, frozen onions at the store. I cannot cut them myself because my eyes are too sensitive to the fumes, even if I wear swim goggles. I really wish I could do it myself because the frozen ones are so expensive.

I know someone that puts cloves of garlic in the freezer and says they are much easier to use. I have not yet tried that yet.

When freezing things such as a casserole or lasagna, I line the pan with saran wrap before adding the food, then freeze. When it is solid, pop it out of the pan, wrap (I use vacuum bags), then slide them into the freezer like a book. Saves a lot of space and I don't have my pans held hostage in the freezer.

Barbaranne, I save all of my bones too. Even from the plates. Well, they're going to be boiled and simmered for HOURS!! It's just me and my family, so what the heck. Hope I didn't gross anyone out.

I also do the cookie dough thing. And when basil is in season and cheap (or I grow it myself), I make a bunch of pesto and then freeze it in ice cube trays. Then I pop them out and put them in a bag in the freezer. One or two cubes is great for a serving of pasta! I also buy large amounts of ground beef cheap and make meatballs. I bake them in the oven instead of frying them, so I can do a lot at once that way. Then I freeze them separate on cookie sheets and pop them into bags when frozen. Voila! Instant meatballs without all the added junk of the frozen ones in the supermarket!

I was wondering if maybe you could chop the onions in a foodprocessor to avoid the fumes and then quickly put them in bags or have someone in your family do so? What do you think? Would that work ?

That's awful! And I love onions so much too, especially fresh ones. I couldn't stand it, so I had to Google this. Amazon sells onion goggles! Can you believe that? I never would have known such things existed. Apparently there are different kinds. Some work well and some don't. This one is supposed to be the Cadillac of onion goggles and has gotten a lot of 5 star reviews: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014SQU1A/?tag=cakecentral-20

Other than that, if I lived close to you I'd chop them for you.

Hi everyone!... I found this website, it may be helpful to also read about freezing other foods apart from baked goods. http://www.storingandfreezing.co.uk/how-freeze-cakes-baked-goods.html

Thanks, Tortitas, for the link . It was nice of you to share.

I am floored that you can freeze cake batter!!!!

This is an awesome tread!!!

awesome!!! To be able to freeze a cake ahead of time would be awesome!!!! Do you think it matters what the filling is? Using ganache or BC should be okay, but not to sure how whipped cream would hold up.

Thank you for making all of these contributions! I have learned so much!

........anybody ever filled and iced a cake in BC, then put it into the freezer for an extended period of time (more than 3 days)?..........


Certainly. We advise brides to do it don't we? The top tier of a wed cake is fzn for a year. If properly wrapped it should be fine.

What NOT to freeze:
*milk (it gets sort of lumpy. Some don't mind that - doesn't seem to effect taste - just the looks.);
*cream(same as milk only bigger lumps & won't whip) ;
*cream cheese; (gets tiny lumps; can't smooth; get soft/sort of liquid-y).
*cottage cheese (if it's lg curd it becomes super small curd - again some won't mind that but for the most part it has a different taste to me);
*egg yolks (yes, I've heard some say they do but my experience is they come out as if they had been hard boiled - not loose yolk like one would use in baking);
* sour cream (separates, get lumpy & liquefied - can't be smoothed.)

Amymnn; I think they actually bake a little better, they seem not to dome quite as much and they taste no different than if you'd just made the batter. What a time (and batter) saver!

Does it matter if it is from skratch or a box cake when it comes to freezing?